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Friday, 1 July 2016

Huge thanks to Kelly Spillane for her guest review of Rescued by Maria Murphy.

We received a copy of this title, from the publishers, in return for an honest review...

Kelly's Review

It's 1889, in West
Cork. A well off young man, named Blake washes up on a beach after crashing his
boat in a bad storm. He washes up on the
Mizen peninsula, where he is found by a fisherman's daughter, called
Ellen. Ellen is a healer and is able to
take the pain away from Blake, therefore saving his life. However, when she meets Blake and realises
that there is an attraction between them, she remembers a warning that she was
given by her Grandmother when she was a little girl. Ellen decides that in order to protect
herself, the way she promised her Grandmother, she would have to remove Blake
from her home and never allow him to come back.
Blake finds that he has fallen head over heels in love with Ellen and
sets out to find her. On their third
meeting, the realise that they are made for each other and decide to be
together. But the course of true love
never does run smooth and it's not long before Blake and Ellen are facing many
obstacles in order to be together.

I loved that this book was set in Cork.
Being from Cork myself, I liked being able to read about areas that I am
familiar with. I also loved how this was
a classic love story that could have been set in any place in the world in any
era and it still would have been the same story being told. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it
touched on topics such a same sex marriage and abortions, both of which are
still something of a taboo subject for many people today, let alone nearly 130
years ago. In my opinion, the nicest
thing about this book is how the relationships of the characters are so well
developed. It is clear to see how much
the characters care about each other from the very start of this novel until
the very last page. I love that the cover falls in perfectly with the story
line. It is extremely eye catching and
would doubtlessly make me pick it and have a look at it if I came across it in
a book shop.

Recently, I have discovered the magic that
is Historical Fiction and I can’t seem to get enough of this genre lately. However, this book wasn't exactly my cup of
tea. I felt nothing for the characters
and found that I didn’t really care what happened to them at any point
throughout the book. I found 'Rescued'
to be a very hard read, and I got through it very slowly. If it wasn't for the fact that the characters
have to travel everywhere in a pony and cart, I would never have believed that
this novel was set back in the 1880's.
For me, it lacked the detail that makes a Historical novel sparkle. It didn’t describe the era enough and I would
have very much liked to discover something new about this time frame, as it is
one that I know very little about. I
also felt that there were way too many characters that were vital to the story
in order to make it work. I know that it
centered on two characters mainly, but I found it very hard to remember who was
who of the background characters. I
found myself picking this up and putting it down a lot, reading only one or two
chapters at a time. I just could not get
into this book and even as the story developed more and became a little more
interesting, 'Rescued' still failed to grab my attention for long periods of
time.

I'm still not sure how I feel about this
particular read. I found it to be a very
slow burner and it took me much longer than usual to finish it. That being said, I am known to give up on
books that I don't like, and I saw this one out to the end. It's not a bad book and it actually has a
lovely story once you get into it. For
me, the main problem was that it could have been set in present day as well as
in the past. It didn’t delve into the
era well enough, containing too little description about the 1880's for my
liking. It lacked depth and left me feeling cold when I finished it. This book
would be perfect for people who love the classics and I'm sure that fans of
Historical Fiction would find this to be a great read, it just wasn't for me. If we all had the same tastes the world would
be a very boring place.

Rescued is published by Poolbeg Press and is available in TPB and ebook format. You can order your copy, with Free Worldwide Postage and 15% discount, HERE. The ebook can be ordered via amazon link below:

About Me

I am a Mum of 5 and and a full time foster carer who escapes into the wonderful world of books.... I am a contributor to Writing.ie as well as lovereading.co.uk and novelicous.com and do guest reviews and posts for other blogs. I run a monthly giveaway of my Random Recommendations which are of varying genres. I keep the reviews short and sweet as well as honest and personal. If the book was received from an author or publisher, for review purposes, I will state this in the review.
I am also on Twitter https://twitter.com/margaretbmadden so come and follow me. I love when followers leave a comment so feel free!!